


This Is Why

by eichart



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Buffalo Sabres, M/M, also protective jack kinda, concerned jack, spoiler: jack gets in an offscreen fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 19:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10703934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eichart/pseuds/eichart
Summary: Sam gets a dirty hit during a game. You can probably guess the rest.





	This Is Why

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the 2015-2016 season (aka when they weren’t living together). Also not actually based off the events of a real game. Also I intentionally left out the team and player that fictionally hit Sam bc I'm not here to hype the drama. Drop a line if you liked. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (find me on tumblr @ eichhart).

When Sam can finally focus again, it’s to a blurry sort of spinning world, a great pounding in his head and a dim registration of hands on his jersey. The familiar droll of Jack’s voice worms its way into his ears, somehow different in its sound though, and he can’t quite place why. ( Worry – he’ll realize later; that’s what coated the familiar timbers of Jack’s words, pitching them slightly higher before it gave way to sizzling anger ).

He opens his mouth to say he’s fine, but almost loses his balance before he can say anything. Jack’s arm is there bracing his waist almost immediately, and it’s the only thing that makes him feel grounded in this bright, bright world. There’s someone else on his other side too –Rich probably, his sluggish mind supplies a few breaths later, with his special gripping shoes so he can get to injured players faster. He can hear the scrap of skate blades against ice, a constant throughout his life and a constant now though the sound disorients him, gloved hand gripping tight to Jack’s shoulder to center himself. He doesn’t know where his stick is. Hopefully someone picked it up – he doesn’t want anyone to trip on it.

“’m fine. I can play.” He tries to tell Dan when he gets back to the bench.

No one believes that for a second. You don’t go careening into the boards headfirst without the extensive head-concussion examination thing. He begins to protest it the best he can, reaching for his water bottle before him ( some how missing by almost two inches, coordination failing him ). Jack and Marcus glare at him, Dan has a heavy hand on his shoulder, and it’s in not so many words that Sam gets the message and makes his way toward the tunnel, a steadying hand on Rich’s shoulder and Jack’s gaze burning into his back. He can practically hear RJ’s comments on this ringing in his ears.

They don’t let him go out to finish the period. Or the one after that. Or the one after that. He doesn’t watch the game on the TV either – the examination takes too long and when he sits down to watch the fast moving image and loud calls make his head pound. He mutes it and falls asleep on the couch instead.

He wakes almost as the game ends, and he’s sitting quietly in his stall when the final buzzer sounds. Head is cradled in his hands, noise washing over him as they come clambering back in; voices on voices on laughter on slaps on backs and asses, ‘good game’ and ‘way to go, a jubilant wash of noise that sounds nothing like defeat. So they won, at least. When he finally looks up a few heartbeats later, taking in the chaos of the dressing room around him, two things strike him at once: one, that Marcus looks like he might burst from pride or start throwing punches – possibly both, and two, Jack has a cut on his nose and what looks like might be a bruise under his left eye.

“How ya doing, Samsonite?” Someone asks, and Sam rolls his eyes. Shrugs his shoulders.

“Alright, you know. How w’s the game?”

“Beat ‘em four one.” Is greeted with cheers. Sam musters a smile of his own, swept up in the exhilaration, laughter settling in his chest.

Marcus looks smug again, one arm slung amiably around Jack’s shoulders. “And Eichs here got in his first fight.” Trust Marcus to be the one to disclose that. “Really gave ‘em hell.” More cheers sweep the room.

Jack flushes, though it’s hard to tell if that just his normal post-game thing or out of embarrassment. Sam doesn’t think it could really be the latter; Jack doesn’t even know what embarrassment is. “Hardly put up a fight.” Is his weak answer, and he gets chirped to hell for it. Still before he leaves for his post-game interview, Sam catches his eye, tries to send him a smile in gratitude. Jack doesn’t smile back.

Jack gets the Sabre from Kane and another congratulatory hug from Marcus.

“Why did you do it?” Sam asks later when Jack’s driving him home because he can’t be trusted to or whatever. It’s probably for the best, honestly. No one had seemed to find any issue when Jack had been the first to volunteer himself. No one had seemed surprised either. Marcus had actually looked far too pleased like Jack saying yes had been the cherry on top of his metaphorical sundae.

Jack is uncharacteristically silent in the wake of Sam’s question, eyes intense on the road, flickering only for the briefest moment to Sam’s face like he can’t bear to look at him. Which is stupid of course, because Jack’s the one sporting a scrapped nose and a potential black eye. Sam doesn’t push the subject. There’s something that lingers in this silence between them, something in the glances Jack sends his way when he thinks Sam’s not looking, and the way there’s a huffed sigh of relief when Sam finally puts his head back against the headrest and shuts his eyes, but it’s all too much to contemplate right now when his head is still a little too blurry.

When they finally pull up into his driveway, Jack nudges him awake. Sam murmurs a thanks and fumbles with his keys on his doorstep until Jack pries them from his fingers with gentle pressure. He follows Sam over his apartment threshold with a hand pressed against his back and Sam’s grateful for the motion no matter how embarrassing this all this because it’s grounding him like it did on the ice hours ago.

He makes his way to his bedroom to sleep and leaves Jack on his couch watching the late night news with the volume turned low.

When he wakes again, his head feels significantly less cloudy. The red numbers of his alarm clock don’t send spikes of pain into his temple and tell him a more than a few hours have passed, the night giving away to a peach dawn outside the window.

He makes his slow way to the kitchen in search for something to drink. He doesn’t really expect to find Jack on his couch still, had half-assumed he would have made his way back to Matt’s at some point in the night. Though maybe that’s a ludicrous though because Sam’s long lost count of the times Jack’s slept on his couch. Jack’s figure stirs at the creak of Sam’s footsteps, shoulders stiffening almost as if he’s been caught doing something undesirable.

 _Why? Why are you still here? Why did you do it, Jack?_ Sam wants to ask. “Toast?” He asks instead, rustling through his barren fridge for bread, because him cooking is a disaster and bagels are about as much as he can master.

The line of Jack’s shoulders relax, “Sure.”

The toaster spits out their bagels, golden-brown and Jack beats him to spreading them thick with peanut butter. “Jack.” He tries again now, head much clearer, the way Jack’s so silent biting at him all the more obvious now. They talk, they _always_ talk and this just stretches awkwardly, too _tensely_ between them. “Jack, please.”

He waits far too many heartbeats for an answer. His fingers graze the back of Jack’s hand, more by accident than anything, and Jack sucks in a short breath but still doesn’t say anything. Sam’s head hurts, his chest hurts too, but that’s less physical injury and more something else. He pulls away, edges around Jack, grabs orange juice from the fridge, and moves to go.

“You didn’t have to see it.” Comes a quiet response, shattering the silence that’s been crystalizing around them.

Sam stops. “What?”

“You didn’t see it happen.” Jack says, louder this time, fingers curled so tight around the knife in his hand his knuckles turn white.

And oh, Sam thinks he gets it. Because teams like to target Jack because he’s good. Because he remembers standing on the ice helpless as Jack careened towards the goal post – curled in on himself unable to halt his unchecked, dangerous trajectory. He gets that: the concern shot so heavily through blue eyes he thinks about too much – his are almost a mirror of them whenever Jack’s upended. So perhaps that explains the staying, the _concern_ , but that doesn’t explain the _fighting_.

(Or perhaps it does – Sam just isn’t willing to quite believe it).

“I’m fine.” He says, and it’s not quite a lie. Jack doesn’t respond to that, seeming to find the peanut butter on the tip of the knife far more interesting than their conversation.

Sam takes a small step forward, carton of orange juice slick between his hands, a question of his own laden heavy on his tongue. “Why did you do it?” _Why did you fight for me?_

Jack seems to try to shrug off the question, eyes not quite meeting Sam’s. “Any of the guys would’ve done it. It was a dirty hit and someone had to do something.”

It’s a good answer, really –neutral, gallant, humble, the kind of answer twitter and fans would eat up even though it said absolutely nothing. Maybe Sam should be satisfied with it too even though he’s not. Because Jack may not be staring but Sam is – at the way the cut across Jack’s nose is still red like it might start bleeding at any moment, at the redness fading to blue under his eye, at his mouth set in a line like he’s trying not to say something, at the way Sam’s looking at his eyes but Jack’s are vacant like when he addresses the media crowding around his stall.

“You know, I’m not the media, Jack.” Sam says softly into the silence. “Why did _you_ do it?” _Why did you fight for me?_ Because Marcus is a fighter, Kane’s never shy, and Risto never pulls his hard hits. Because Jack’s a lot of things, but he likes to get people back with scathing chirps and pretty assists and soul-crushing goals (which, as far as Sam can tell from the game stats, that happened too). “Jack—“

“ _Because_ I was angry.” Jack flares back to life suddenly, eyes shifting up and Sam’s caught breathless in the intensity blazing in their depths. “Because they hit you with a fucking dirty hit and we don’t know when you’ll be back. _Because_ –“ There’s a hesitation before the rest of the sentence is chewed out, strangled as if it pains him to drag up from some hidden depths. “—because they _hurt_ you, Sam. And I couldn’t –because—“ It’s an aborted explanation, choppy with hands clenched at sides, closer to the truth perhaps than some canned media answer but still dancing around some inevitable truth like –like Jack’s unwilling to admit something.

And—

 _Oh._ Thinks Sam, because staring into Jack’s eyes he thinks he gets this too. ( Because there’s things like how his heart beats when they’re playing Call of Duty and sitting far too close, the way he feels when one of them gets a goal and the other the assist and he’s wrapped up in Jack’s arms and never wants to leave, the way that he never dreads roadtrips because they means more time with _Jack_ and _oh_ ). They’re close now, too close in the large expanse of Sam’s kitchen, yet all Sam can think is, _I want to be closer_. “Jack, I—“ He begins to say, not knowing where the sentence is going.

Turns out it doesn’t need an ending.

Because Jack was never the best with words after all, better with actions, better at doing than explaining. Braver than Sam too, with heated eyes and a broad hand that settles on Sam’s shoulder and slides its way to settle along the curve of his neck instead. Time doesn’t stand still because time doesn’t work that way –they would know, a clock always tick, tick, ticking down on the ice ( on the road, on their contracts, always toward some ending they can’t foresee –don’t _want_ to see ). But there’s something in this moment, Sam caught in the gravity of Jack’s eyes and Jack’s eyes flicker down to his lips and he thinks, _oh, I need you closer_.

And it’s like Jack can hear him.

Jack’s always been able to hear him, on and off the ice.

They may not have clicked the moment they touched the same rink in Sabres’ blue and gold, but Jack meets his lips with his own and it feels so right, something slotting perfectly into place.

_Oh._

The carton of orange junior has disappeared from his hands, free fingers brushing uncertainly against Jack’s waist, curling upwards across the expanse of his back, clutching fabric, digging into the muscle there. Everything feels too much, the heat of Jack’s mouth, the way their tongues tangle whilst seeking something desperate, the trace of fingers on his neck and tangled in the length of his hair.

_Oh._

“Do you get it now?” Jack whispers when they’ve finally separated, breath fluttering against his lips. There’s something in his eyes, uncertainty buried in their blue depths.

 _Vulnerable_. Sam thinks.

Sam meets his gaze unflinchingly, meeting the intensity and concern and something _else_ in them, a touch of a smile on his lips. “Yes.” He says, and it’s not a lie because he feels it too.


End file.
